In Depth
‘Sopranos’ Finale Draws 11.9 Mil Viewers
The finale of “The Sopranos” drew at least the fourth largest audience in the show’s history Sunday night.
About 11.9 million people tuned in to the abrupt ending of the acclaimed HBO mob series. Within HBO’s universe, the program did a 22.7 rating (live plus same day) and 32 share. Among all U.S. adults 18-49, it pulled a 5.4 rating.
The finale was the most viewed episode of the season, which was the lowest rated since season three in 2001, averaging 8.2 million viewers. The previous episode drew 8 million viewers.
HBO drew 13.4 million viewers for the premiere of season four of the Sopranos in 2002, 1.2 million for the finale of season four and 1.2 million for the premiere of season five in 2004. But Nielsen Media Research changed the way it calculated HBO’s audience. Before 2004, it include all of the HBO channels, so some of those 2002 viewers could have been watching a movie on HBO2, for example.
Now, HBO shows its programs repeatedly each week over several channels and also makes them available on video on demand, which also makes comparisons to prior seasons murky.
An HBO spokesman said that the company did not get an unusual amount of response to the ending of the series, in which the picture suddenly went to black, prompting some viewers to wonder if their TV or cable had gone out.
But the number of viewers going on HBO.com to post comments briefly crashed the site.
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Comments 4
Jon
Didn't get an unusual amount of responses???? it was covered on every morning show across the country. The web response crashed the site, but they didn't get an unusual amount of response to the worse ending in television history?
Not exactly hard reporting guys? Geting kind of soft at TV Week, eh?
Bill
For once I agree with Les Moonves...true fans wouldn't expect closure or a "shoot 'em up" scene from the Sopranos final episode. The show was sublime, multi-layered and more about the psychology of personality than a mob shooting spree. C'mon...it started with Tony in therapy! I'm amazed how anyone can watch the show and only get it on the most superficial level. Although most of the people criticizing the ending seemed to be very casual viewers, or the "Johnny come lately" crowd. Bravo to Mr. Chase for giving us an intelligent program even though it apparently went over a lot of heads. The ending couldn't have been better!
Phil and Sue Ricciardi
There has to be a continuation either a movie or bring back the series under a different name. They got too!
Ray
Maybe we, as a viewing society, have become acustomed to having our favorite television shows and movies end in a completed fashion to save us from using our own imagination.
Mr. Chase simply set up a situation that allowed die hard viewers to use their imagination and fill in their own ending to the Tony Soprano saga, according to their interpretation of the entire eight seasons.